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Coal Mining on the East Moors

Few visitors realise that coalmines once existed where there is now peace and tranquillity high on the East Moors.  The surface remains are still visible.

Coal mining on the East Moors from Medieval times into the early 20th century has exploited several relatively thin seams.  There are several mines with good survival of surface features, from Ringinglow and Stanage Edge in the north, to Beeley in the south.  This contrasts strongly with mine surface features further east around Sheffield and Chesterfield, which have largely been levelled.

While never as productive as the seams further east in the Coal Measures of the Yorkshire and Derbyshire coalfields, the East Moors mines were conveniently sited for local markets to the west.  Here the coal was used industrially for lead smelting and limeburning, and also for domestic purposes.  Evidence has recently been found in lead mines that local coal was used extensively for firesetting.  This method of breaking rock with heat was used before underground use of gunpowder became common at the beginning of the 18th century.

The East Moors coalmines are of particular archaeological importance because almost all those to the east have been destroyed or severely damaged, whereas the majority of surface features survive in the upland examples.

This deep hollow is one of the many near Robin Hood. It is the site of a collapsed coal mine shaft and the waste heap of another can be seen behind. These shafts were part of Baslow Colliery, which may have first been working in the Medieval times and was certainly producing coal from the Baslow seam in the 18th and early 19th centuries

The Mines Today

The remains to be seen are usually low mounds of spoil from the sinking of shafts, the latter now collapsed or sealed.  In many cases these shafts were relatively shallow and spaced close together to facilitate ventilation.  While some sites have scores of such features, normally only a handful of shafts at most would be open at any one time.  New shafts were periodically sunk as mining migrated away from the outcrops where the coal was first found.

Plan of the coal mining surface remains south of Robin Hood above Baslow

Good examples of these shaft mounds can be seen above Stanage Edge south of the paved way to Stanage Pole, on the moor south-west of Owler Bar, in the fields to north and south of Robin Hood and on moorland east of Beeley Warren.  What are no longer visible are the documented drift entrances, drainage sough tails, waterwheels used for pumping and timber gin engines sometimes used to bring coal up the shafts.

For more information on coal mining try the archive.

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